Climate change outlook for water resources management in a semiarid river basin: the effect of the environmental water demand.

Iran is a developing country with arid and semiarid regions. Poor management of water resources combined with the effects of climate change is leading to the drying of several rivers and wetlands. Several planned water development projects, primarily for agricultural expansion, will be implemented in the coming years which could worsen impacts on vulnerable aquatic ecosystems. Proper water resources management is essential to meet present and future residential, environmental, industrial, and agricultural demands in semiarid regions. This paper presents projections of how the availability of water resources will change in the Karkheh river basin of Iran for the period 2010-2059 employing sustainability criteria in the form of time-based reliability, volumetric reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability. This paper's results show that consideration of environmental receptors as a stakeholder of water use places limitations on agricultural development within the Karkheh river basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]